Water agency kept uranium contamination secret

Oct. 10, 2008

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 12:28 p.m.

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NO TRESPASSING: A sign warns the curious not to approach the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's Hayfield site just east of Chiriaco Summit along Interstate 10 in the Mojave Desert. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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HAYFIELD: The Hayfield site is located about 150 miles east of Orange County in the Mojave Desert of Riverside County. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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HAYFIELD BASIN: Shining pipes of the Colorado River aqueduct can be seen from Interstate 10, near the Hayfield groundwater storage site. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California had high hopes for the project because it was located so close to the aqueduct. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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HAYFIELD ON THE HORIZON: The Hayfield basin, in the Mojave Desert, has recorded elevated levels of uranium contamination. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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HAYFIELD FACILITY: The Colorado River Aqueduct water runs directly by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's proposed Hayfield site. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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HAYFIELD ON THE HORIZON: The Hayfield basin, in the Mojave Desert, has recorded elevated levels of uranium contamination. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

NO TRESPASSING: A sign warns the curious not to approach the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's Hayfield site just east of Chiriaco Summit along Interstate 10 in the Mojave Desert.JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Southern California's largest water agency kept a groundwater project on its books for eight years without disclosing to key officials or the public that the site is contaminated with uranium and other toxic chemicals, an Orange County Register investigation has found.

Water tests found that uranium contamination at Hayfield averaged roughly 16 picocuries per liter, with a high of 35 picocuries per liter, documents from 2000 show. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's limit for uranium in drinking water is 20 picocuries per liter.

Water from the Colorado River, a major source of Metropolitan's water, generally has 4 picocuries of uranium per liter. The five largest community water agencies in Orange County report uranium levels of 1.9 to 9.4 picocuries per liter, on average.

In July, agency staff cited Hayfield as a resource available if drought conditions persist in California. Staff told the district board that nearly 4 billion gallons of water - enough to supply the city of Buena Park for a full year - could be retrieved from Hayfield in 2009. On Tuesday, the staff plans to ask the board to approve preliminary steps to extract water from the site.

The top official at the water district says the contamination is isolated and the water can be diluted with clean Colorado River water to the point that it's not a problem. He said that everyone who needed to know about the contamination was told about it.

"It was never communicated as a show stopper because we didn't believe it was," General Manager Jeff Kightlinger said.

But environmentalists and state water officials were surprised when the Register showed them documents detailing the uranium contamination.

"I would expect a higher level of truth," said Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club, a Joshua Tree activist who once urged the district to pursue the Hayfield project. "They should have been more forthright."

Water experts said that Metropolitan's plan to dilute the water to lower the concentrations is a common and generally accepted solution.

Well tests from this year, provided by the district, show uranium levels ranging from 2.3 to 17 picocuries per liter, with an average of 5.87. Those numbers are different than the earlier numbers, in part, because the 2000 numbers reflect multiple tests on eight wells. The new numbers represent one test for each of 13 wells.

District officials also said that all water tested at Hayfield represents "raw," untreated water. Before any of that water is delivered to residents it would be treated, which would further lower the level of contaminants.

For the amounts typically found in water, uranium is dangerous not for its radioactivity but for its properties as a heavy metal. Uranium is toxic to kidneys and in high enough doses can kill tissues surrounding the organs.

As with many contaminants in water, there is disagreement among scientists about exactly how much uranium is too much. Although the EPA says 20 picocuries per liter is safe, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has set a goal of no more than 0.43 picocuries of uranium per liter in drinking water.

Science, he said, may suggest that the level be extremely low for health reasons, but federal officials also consider what's practical. "Science can only go so far in what these standards should be," he said, adding, "It's considered safe at" the federal limit.

But experts said the agency may face a public relations problem when the public learns about the uranium in the water, and some of Metropolitan's own member agencies may refuse to take it.

"A lot of people in Newport are upset about fluoride (in the water)," said Jan Vandersloot, an Orange County environmentalist. "Uranium in drinking water... I think that would be a cause for concern."

The Hayfield saga reflects a long history of controversy at the 80-year-old water agency. Metropolitan currently faces two lawsuits that allege it is poorly managed and suggest it makes decisions based on politics instead of the public interest.

"There isn't a thing they do that doesn't have a political part to it," said Art Aguilar, general manager of the Central Basin Water District, which is suing the agency over its drought plan. "You protect your kingdom and the only way to protect your kingdom is to be politically astute."

Board president Timothy Brick, of Pasadena, said he takes criticism of the agency, commonly known as Met, in stride.

"We operate in a political context. Sometimes we make a good target," he says. But Brick argued that Met is accountable to the public and provides good service.

At least 10 water districts statewide have rationed water this year in response to a statewide drought, and some land development projects in Southern California have been delayed for months as officials scramble to ensure there's water available for new construction.

With an annual budget of well over $1 billion and a service area of 5,200 square-miles, Met is so important to the region that any solution to the water crisis will require its cooperation.

When the aqueduct, which diverts river water to Southern California, first came online, water filled the basin - and then disappeared. At the time, engineers theorized that the water had seeped into a vast underground aquifer, where the district might store water someday.

The agency largely ignored the site, which it owns, until the late 1990s, when the federal government demanded that California reduce its use of Colorado River water. For decades, California had been allowed to use more than its legal share of the water, but population explosions in Nevada and Arizona necessitated an immediate cutback.

That's when Met turned to Hayfield. District officials thought it would make a good place to store excess Colorado water during wet years. The agency's then-chairman, Phillip J. Pace, called Hayfield a project of "great potential."

Around the same time, Met also considered a second project roughly 60 miles north in the Cadiz Valley of San Bernardino County, where private interests also believed a huge supply of water pooled below the surface.

But critics raised concerns about the project's impact on the Mojave Desert and about the political connections of the businessman who proposed it. Environmentalists urged the district to abandon Cadiz and pursue Hayfield if it needed groundwater storage.

"A coalition of public interest groups and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are demanding to know why this project has been fast-tracked while others - such as the Hayfield Valley Project - that keep water rights within the control of public utilities and use existing sites - basically have been ignored," wrote Jane Kelly, of the watchdog group Public Citizen, in a 2002 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times.

In October 2002, the Met board voted to abandon Cadiz because of political, economic and environmental concerns.

But The Register could find no evidence that district staff ever told the public, the state or even its own board members that the water at Hayfield was contaminated with uranium.

Six current and former board members contacted by the Register, including chairman Brick and former chairman Wes Bannister, of Huntington Beach, said they didn't remember ever being told that uranium was found at Hayfield.

Kightlinger, the general manager, insists that they were.

"Maybe they don't remember," he said. James Rez,who has represented the city of Glendale on the Met board since August 1988, said he absolutely wasn't told of uranium at Hayfield. "I think I would take notice that something had uranium in it," he said.

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND RADIOACTIVE WASTE

By the time the board voted to drop the Cadiz project in 2002, district staff had known for two years that there were problems at Hayfield.

Internal district correspondence obtained by The Register show that the staff discussed problems with bromide in the water in 2000. Bromide is a problem in drinking water because, under certain conditions, it can form carcinogenic compounds.

The water also contained nitrate, the memo says. Nitrate can cause the life-threatening "blue baby syndrome" in infants.

However, "Uranium is the biggest problem," says the May 11, 2000, memo. "Uranium can be removed with ion exchange, but it will create a hazardous waste problem."

The contamination stems from naturally occurring uranium in the soil, district officials said.

The document is marked with a room number but contains the name of neither the author nor its recipient. Agency officials said they couldn't determine who occupied that room in 2000, but they did not dispute that the document is genuine.

The memo concludes: "Economics would have to be worked out for treatment issues but uranium removal (and consequent radioactive waste) looks like a major stumbling block."

In an interview in September, Kightlinger said the uranium wasn't a problem because subsequent tests revealed the contamination was limited to just part of the basin.

He said the water is safe so long as the district only draws from uncontaminated wells. Furthermore, the district planned to dilute the Hayfield water in large amounts of clean Colorado River water, which would reduce the uranium concentrations to well within safe levels, he said.

The district thus far has not provided documents detailing how it knows the contamination is isolated, but it has shared 24 pages of summary test results that show uranium at safe, low levels in 2008.

Those results show 13 Hayfield wells with uranium levels below the Environmental Protection Agency maximum of 20 picocuries per liter. (A picocurie is one-trillionth of a Curie, a measurement of radioactivity.) The 2008 test results conclude that "Uranium is not expected to be a problem."

But independent experts consulted by the Register said the district's plan to pump water only out of wells that have tested low for uranium could be problematic.

Such aquifers are not a single underground pool, scientists say. Rather they're like big sponges that hold water. As such, the water sits in various sections of the basin and water drawn out of one area may test differently than water from another portion of the site.

Experts warned that a good well could easily becomeinfiltrated with water from a more heavily contaminated portion of the site.

"It is possible that another well ï¿½ could draw in some of the water you're worried about," said Robert Bowman, professor of hydrology at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. "There's certainly a cause for concern."

After learning of the contamination, the agency negotiated a deal to receive up to $35 million in reimbursement for Hayfield expenses from the state Department of Water Resources, which wanted to encourage efforts to reduce the state's dependence on Colorado River water.

Only about $4 million in state funds were spent on preliminary studies of the site, and that money was later paid back.

But state water resources' Interstate Resources Manager Jeanine Jones, who testified before Congress about Hayfield in 2001, said she did not know about the uranium contamination when she spoke before the House Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power.

State officials say they may have acted differently had they known of the contamination.

"Depending on the severity of the problem," Department spokesman Ted Thomas said in an e-mail, "DWR might not have started payment of funds for Hayfield Project until [Metropolitan]committed to a solution or proved that the problem was not significant."

Kightlinger confirmed the state was not informed of the uranium, but said there was no need to disclose that because the agency wasn't seeking state permits.

STILL ON THE LIST

An extended drought along the Colorado River ensured there was little excess water to percolate into the ground basinand the board postponed the Hayfield project in 2004. Hayfield water has never entered the agency's water system.

But in August, agency staff mentioned Hayfield when it updated board members on water supplies available for 2009.

The Aug. 18 report said staff is "currently in the preliminary design phase" for Hayfield and that "Final design and a request for funding for the Hayfield project will be the subject of an upcoming board letter in the near future."

The board will consider that request Tuesday.

Staff has indicated that if it were approved, Hayfield could start providing water by next year.

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